Platen for a source data machine



June 23, 1970 J. G. NANTZ PLATEN FOR A SOURCE DATA MACHINE Filed Jan. 9, 1968 INVENTOR /4C/( G. A/4/V7'Z ATTORNEY United States Patent 3,516,356 PLATEN FOR A SOURCE DATA MACHINE Jack G. Nantz, Euclid, Ohio, assignor to Addrcssograph- Multigraph Corporation, Cleveland, Ohio, a corporation of Delaware Filed Jan. 9, 1968, Ser. No. 696,557 Int. Cl. 341i 3/04 US. Cl. l269 2 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A data encoder in which a roller platen is caused to roll across an embossed printing plate in a fixed space relationship by a spacer means such as a spacing rim carried by the platen.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Refer to US. Pat. 3,277,822 as a teaching of one general type of original source data encoder wherein a manually closable head device carries a manually operable roller platen movable across a superposed stack of a temporary printing plate, colloquially referred to as a credit card, and an interleaved form having at least one sheet to be encoded and one carbon sheet to provide pressure release marking media.

Another and later advance in data encoding for filling those needs not served by the patent structure, is shown in application Ser. No. 492,513 entitled, Printing Machine.

It has been the practice in the past to provide source data on a plate having the information embossed as characters formed from the material of a plate, and projecting from a planar surface of the plate. Originally such plates were made in metal, but later developments in synthetic resins have made such material quite widely accepted for this purpose. Credit transactions are the principal illustration of the use of such temporar printing devices.

For human recognition, there has been no diificulty in respect to uniformity of impression. Cards having a bulk of information embossments in one area to distribute the pressure load of the roller, but having been in another area, will cause the area having few embossments to be overimpressed and somewhat smudgy in appearance. Human recognition can compensate for these differences without problem.

However, with the advent of magnetic ink character recognition, and optical scanning devices to read various portions of imprinted forms, uniformity of impression has become a prime requisite; Smudges in the areas where there are no characters or along the path of characters, can confuse an optical reader into giving false responses or to trigger a reject mechanism.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An advantage of this invention is that a roller platen may be held firmly to roll along a supporting anvil, at a distance from that anvil, as determined by the material to be imprinted, and with a high resistance to diversion from the established path.

The invention employs a gauge device to space the actual printing surface from the temporary printing plate.

That gauge device is a permanent member carried by the roller itself, but coupled with the temporary printing device and the form to be imprinted, whereby the spacing of the impression roller from the printing surface is established by the thickness of the form which is being printed.

3,516,356 Patented June 23, 1970 "ice FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a data encoding machine embodying features of this invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic representation of the anvil and form clamping mask of the machine of FIG. 1, together with two separate printing devices supported upon two separate anvil blocks, and a printing platen shown schematically in position for imprinting.

FIG. 3 is a figure similar to that of FIG. 2 from another type imprinting machine which cannot employ a form clamping mask as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 of the drawings illustrates a source data encoder commonly employed in data collection apparatus. The operating mechanism is carried within housing 10. Guide board 12 is provided to assembling the various printing components in working relationship, in the structure of FIG. 1. A multileaved form 14 is shown in position on the bed of the guide board 12 in FIG. 1.

In FIG. 2 the form 14 is omitted. An embossed temporary printing plate, which is a plastic credit card 15 in the illustration, is in printing position without the form 14.

In the FIG. 2 an anvil 16, which is spring loaded in this particular type of data encoder, is positioned to support a portion of the credit card 15. The spring loading condition is suggested by the supporting arrow. A similar anvil 17 supports a semipermanent printing member 18. Member 18, for example, may be a plate which indicates the location of the particular encoder, whereas the more temporary plate 15 may be the personal card of a customer or a workman using that particular encoder momentarily. The spring loaded anvil concept gives ample support to cause printing interaction pressure, but will yield in the event of overloading.

The embossed card 15 serves the function of a panel printing plate employed as the transaction related information source. This designation is employed to convey the thought of a thin panel member, with embossed printing characters projecting from one surface. Such panel printing members are made of metal and composition material as well as plastic material. Although the panel printing members are usually planar, such flatness is not a requirement for the present invention. Hereinafter, reference will be made only to credit card 15 as an illustration of the type of device acceptable to the present invention.

The data encoder of FIG. 1 employs a head 25 with a cross rail 26. The head pivots to an open position shown in FIG. 1 for providing access to the guide board 12. The head 25 is closeable to a fixed position looked upon the guide board 12. Hooks 27 catch into latch devices within housing 10 to hold the head against displacement.

A roller platen 30, carried by a yoke 31, rides the rail 26 and has a substantially unyielding path of advance merit across the print carrier area of the guide board 12.

In the embodiment shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the head 25 carries a form clamp mask 34. The spacing concepts of this invention for assurance of optically clear impressions, and uniformity for magnetic ink character recognition, is accomplished by using a spacer flange 36, as illustrated in FIG. 2, together with the actual form or a substitute for that form. The substitute, in FIG. 2, is the mask 34.

Each embossed character projects from the card surface essentially a fixed distance. In order to press the character into the form set for best printing quality, the platen must be held a fixed distance from the character.

This space is referred to by those skilled in the art as interference. If an anvil is unyielding, and the platen is unyielding, the pressure exerted on a character will increase as the form thickness is increased. The yieldable anvil 16 is used to limit the maximum pressure to prevent excessive damage and overprinting.

The spacer means must be related to the form thickness for proper results. If the form set is placed under under the mask 34 along the top edge where the rim 36 rides, then the rim and the form mask together provide the interference spacing. If the form set is allowed to project under the mask, smudging appears which interferes with optical character recognition. Hence, it is desirable to have the combination of the mask and the rim of sufficient thickness that a space always exists between the embossed characters and the face of the platen. This situation is illustrated in FIG. 2. The form is not shown in FIG. 2 in order to reveal the permanent spacing thus created. Therefore, no amount of change in the distribution of characters on the card will result in the roller platen dropping down toward the planar face of card 15 and create reader confusion smudges.

Because the head is designed to hold the platen firmly to its given track, sufficient imprinting force will be available in those areas of the card 25 wherein the card is filled from side-to-side with embossed printing characters. The division of the available pressure is able to result in enough pressure for each character to cause proper imprinting. Nevertheless, whenever the platen proceeds to an area wherein there are fewer characters under the platen at a given time, or even a total lack of characters, the platen will not strike the surface of the form with an imprinting force sufficient to cause a transfer of the marking media from the interleaved carbon forms.

It is not always possible to use a mask 34 as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. This invention provides a unique solution for those devices unable to use such masks. Under such circumstances, it is possible to design the interleaved form such that deliberate smudging may be created by a spacer means outside the area normally scanned by the reading machine, and thus harmless to the resultant printed form. FIG. 3 illustrates this condition. Roller platen 50 is provided with printing surfaces 51 and 52 divided by a rim 53, which acts as a pressure control spacer means. The rim 53 is preferred over the altematives, such as a flat bar spacer member placed over the form. Rim 53 is, in effect, such a bar rolled around the platen. An interleaved form 14 is shown between the card 15 and the platen 50. The form 14 is indicated as enveloping the peaks of the raised characters on the card to suggest the impression penetration of these raised characters. The broad area of rim 53 seated upon the surface of the form does not penetrate as the characters do. Therefore the form 14 and the rim 53 provide a support which limits the approach of the surfaces 51 and 52 toward the raised characters and thereby establishes the desired amount of interference.

By relating the height of the rim 53 to the interleaved form which is to be employed with the chosen imprinting device, the rim 53 then operates in conjunction with the form set per se to act as a spacer means, when these two items are coupled 'with the thickness of the credit card 15 itself. Regardless of what thickness of credit card is employed, the spacing is done from the face of the card because the contact of the printing surfaces between printing characters is critical with respect to the face of the card and not to total thickness.

Although the spacing is important to prevent excessive pressure resulting in spreading of the characters, the spreading of characters is somewhat secondary in consideration in the present invention.

The object of the invention with respect to character recognition, either optically or electrically, is accomplished by prevention of any degree of smudge printing between the areas of the printing characters, or distortion of magnetic characters beyond capability of inducing a correct electrical wave form in a reader.

In FIG. 1, the form 14 is shown with a broad printed stripe 56 which extends longitudinally along the form in an area which is not under the scrutiny of a machine to read the form. The rim 53 is designed to operate within the area of the stripe 56. Rim 53 will crash print a definite smudge by this arrangement, but the smudge is placed outside the scrutiny area and therefore has no effect. Accordingly, this invention eliminates objectionable smudge printing by the creation of an innocuous smudge.

What is claimed is:

1. A printing apparatus for printing a machine readable form set free of unwanted smudging which may confuse the reading machine, the printing being accomplished by a roller platen traversing a panel printing member having printing characters projecting from one surface thereof in a group area less than the full card surface, said apparatus comprising:

an anvil defining a support surface for receiving the panel printing member and form set in superposed relationship;

a roller platen having a rim band around the circumference of the roller platen, means for rolling said platen in a printing action path across said anvil, and said rim band bearing on a portion of the form set overlaying a portion of the panel printing member outside the area of said printing characters; and spacer means including the body of the panel printing member outside the area of the printing characters, the band and form set, said spacer means thereby establishing a predetermined fixed space between the platen and the printing member raised characters, said predetermined fixed space being less than the normal thickness of the form set, whereby the smudging of the form set is confined to the area traversed by said band.

2. A printing apparatus for printing a machine readable form set free of unwanted smudging which may confuse the reading machine, the printing being accomplished by a roller platen traversing a panel printing member having printing characters projecting from one surface thereof in a group area less than the full card surface, said apparatus comprising:

an anvil defining a support surface for receiving the panel printing member and form set in superposed relationship;

a roller platen, means for rolling said platen in a printing action path across said anvil, and spacer means including the body of the panel printing member outside the area of printing characters, said form set and a spacer member extending along the said path between the printing member and the platen superposed with the said area of the printing member outside said area of printing characters, said spacer means being of a thickness such that the combined thickness of said panel, form set, and spacer member establishes a predetermined fixed space between the platen and the printing member raised characters, said predetermined fixed space being less than the normal thickness of the form set, whereby the smudging of the form set is confined to the area superposed by said spacer member.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS ROBERT E, PULFREY, Primary Examiner E. H. EICKHOLT, Assistant Examiner 

